Alrosa Lifts Rough Prices at February Sale

RAPAPORT... Alrosa raised prices at its contract sale last week as the rough market continued to recover following the coronavirus-related slowdown.The increases for the February trading session were around 3% to 4% on average, with sharper rises in some categories, insiders told Rapaport News this week. Since August, the Russian miner has given customers a non-itemized invoice, making it hard from them to estimate how large the changes were."During [the] last months, we are [experiencing] rather positive market developments," an Alrosa spokesperson said Wednesday. "The demand for rough is robust, and all prerequisites for [a] rough-price recovery are in place."The move continues Alrosa's reversal of the deep price cuts it made in August. As with De Beers, the company maintained prices during the peak of the pandemic, and only reduced them when the market started to improve.The stronger surge in demand in recent months has given both companies an opportunity to lift prices again. Some categories are now significantly more expensive than before the pandemic, an Alrosa customer pointed out."They went down a lot in the cheaper goods in the back end of last year, and now they're just clawing some of that up," a source in the rough market said.Alrosa said it was still allowing customers to defer 100% of their purchase allocations. However, strong demand meant the miner sold most of the goods it offered, clients reported. De Beers also raised prices at its sight this week, its third hike in as many sales, with the increases averaging about 4% to 5%.Image: Rough diamonds. (Alrosa)